


and sung me moon-struck; kissed me quite insane (I think I made you up inside my head)

by moprocrastinates



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: F/M, also this is my first fic in four years so i'm sorry for the weird emotional flux, angst angst angst bc why not, cardan is good with words and loves her a lot, jude is bad with emotions, what more do you want
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23850289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moprocrastinates/pseuds/moprocrastinates
Summary: It’s not like she intended to lose them. That would be cruel, and as much as Jude regarded as a ruthless, cunning, royal bitch, she wasn’t cruel. No, no, that title belonged solely to her beloved husband, who, if she couldn’t find her gift in the next day, wouldn’t be getting much of anything for their first anniversary.|| Jude wrote Cardan letters during her time in exile. ||
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	and sung me moon-struck; kissed me quite insane (I think I made you up inside my head)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone!!! I wrote a fic for the first time in four years!!! It's sappy and romantic and emotional and probably OOC, but I'm proud of it, and I promise I'll get better with the next chapters.
> 
> Comment if you like, and follow me on tumblr at moprocrastinates. I'm open for prompts too! 
> 
> Title from Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song."

Jude would like it somewhere on the record that she _tried_. 

Really. She did. 

It’s not like she _intended_ to lose them. That would be cruel, and as much as Jude regarded herself as a ruthless, cunning, royal bitch, she wasn’t cruel. 

No, no, _that_ title belonged solely to her beloved husband, who, if she couldn’t find her gift in the next day, wouldn’t be getting much of anything for their first anniversary. 

Not that it mattered, really. Cardan had said he didn’t want anything, in the same stupid way he had confessed, “Of course it was a trick!” when she returned to Elfhame to save Taryn’s ass. 

“Sure, Cardan,” Jude huffed, blowing a tress of curly hair out of her face with a heavy breath. All heart and steel, she moved with a ferocious grace as she tore through the castle. Windows bright with moonlight cast ghostly shadows across the floor, and a soft breeze, warm as the summer outside, did nothing to ease Jude’s anxiety. Thankfully the hallway was empty; she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t explode in an odd faerie’s face should they bump into her. 

“I don't want anything, dear Jude, because _why_ would I desire possibly _anything_ when I have you?” Her tongue tripped over the delicacy of Cardan’s tone, and she sighed. A year later, and still her mockery of Cardan wasn’t nearly as good as it should be, but she figured she could blame that on her nerves. 

Once she found the damn letters, she’d do a better impression. In front of him, no less. Her husband caused her so much grief. (She wouldn’t have it any other way.)

“Focus, Jude,” she told herself, deep brown eyes moving straight in front of her, brows beginning to furrow. “Don’t let Cardan distract you.” 

Over the year since her successful return to Elfhame, Jude found herself utterly besotted (Cardan loved the word, and so she’d begun using it-- damn him) with her husband. Not that she hadn’t been before, but living beside Cardan and experiencing all that he is in a brand new light was something entirely new. Every day, it seemed, brought something new from Cardan to Jude: cups of tea with milk and teaspoons of hot honey right as she woke up, hot baths, sprinkled with lavender and mint, drawn when she came in from sword practice, and gentle kisses and massages whenever her ire felt strong enough to control all the roots buried deep within their land and force them to ruin Elfhame itself. Cardan’s words, always soft, sometimes sharp, remained her constant. He remained her constant, and it was now, marching through the hallway, that Jude reminded herself that she needed to show him the same feeling he gave her. 

She needed her letters. But they were nowhere to be found. 

The mortal world, and Vivi, had been absolutely no help. “What kind of place do you think I’m living in?” Vivi had asked her as Jude flipped up cushions, emptied cupboards, and pried up ceiling tiles in their formerly-shared apartment. “I’m not a vault! I’m not just storing stuff for you for a rainy day! You live in a castle, Jude! You have over a hundred rooms!”

“I had hoped you would at least keep some things of mine!” Jude jerked her old mattress away from the wall and peered behind it. Nothing. Fuck. “You know, sister sentimentality and all that!”

She didn’t have to turn around to see the half-smirk on Vivi’s face. “That’s exactly why I’ve kept as little as I have.”

Ugh. Sisters could be the _worst_.

Now, her steps were loud in the empty, elegant hallway, slim, glittery boots clomping down onto the marble floor as she strode to her rooms. Her-- their-- rooms, right. She still wasn’t used to that.

If she was honest, she still wasn’t used to this life. Or love. 

She tried. Really, she did. Jude gave him kisses and hugs and curled her body around his in the evenings, strategy plans in hand. But she wasn’t as good at words as Cardan. Now, even a year later, despite having said them before, those three words escaped her, forced her mouth dry, and floated off with the wind. Madoc had taught her to keep her feelings close as a method of control, of power, never letting an enemy know one’s weaknesses. She’d done that her entire life, and even with Cardan, it was difficult. So she showed it differently than he did. Was that her problem? Her love shaped itself physically, her hand crawling into his, her face buried into his shoulder.

Did he know how much she cared if she didn’t use the words?

"I know you love me, my villainous girl," Cardan had told her just last week when she’d shyly asked about their upcoming celebration, and the look on her face -- frustration, probably-- made him smirk. "I don’t need anything, I promise you."

“Sure, Cardan,” she snorted again. His voice had become somewhat of a nuisance in her mind, a conscious that, if she ever let it slip, he would lord over her until they vanished into dust. 

They had to be in their rooms. Right. It was the only logical place.

Cocking her head, Jude looked around her half of the room. Everything seemed to be where it was when she left this morning, so maybe Cardan hadn’t been poking around, the way he often did when she was this scatterbrained. He probably knew something was up, and if he had any brains (which he did-- she wasn’t fooling herself), Cardan would absolutely know, and then he would win. 

Damn him if he knew something she didn’t want him to know just yet. _Damn him_ if he won the game of feelings. 

“Stupid, Jude!” She cried out, brows furrowed as her fingers reached for the most coveted of her hiding spots under the nearest floorboard to her bedside table. “He’s going to know, and you’re going to get caught, and he’s going to _outdo_ you on this.”

“Outdo you on what?” 

Jude immediately dropped the floorboard, and tried not to look like she’d been caught with her hand in a sweets jar. At the entryway stood Cardan, her beloved, beautiful husband, a thick eyebrow arched in her direction. His black eyes shone with something akin to sunlight. “Uh, nothing. Nothing.” She stood up, brushing her hands against her dress’s skirt. “I’m just looking for something. It doesn’t concern you.” 

“Ahh,” Cardan said, and stepped toward her slowly, black eyes glinting as he traced the black dress she wore. He licked his lips, and oh, mercy, he was going to kill her, and he’d still win. “You’re such a terrible liar, Jude.”

“No, I’m not!” She snapped, but even before she said the words, she knew she was caught. 

Cardan merely laughed, a soft sound. “Defensive to the end, are we?”

Jude raised her chin. “As always, my king.”

She refused to break eye contact, which was probably why she didn’t feel his hands until they touched hers, circled them like they were telling hers a secret. “Not with me, Jude,” Cardan whispered, eyes leaving hers to watch his own fingers trace a pattern on her palm, “Never with me.” 

Well, shit. Swallowing a breath, she whispered, “I can’t find your gift.” 

Black eyes flashed back to hers. “What gift?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Cardan.”

“I know nothing, darling,” he purred, and Jude felt his tail curl around her right ankle as he stepped close. Pale hands came to clutch at her upper arms. “I promise.”

“Uh huh,” she eyed him skeptically. Cardan merely blinked slowly and sweetly back at her, and damn if he didn’t know how to play her like a faerie fiddle. 

She hated that she loved him _so much_. 

“Care to share, Jude?” He said, and stepped away, choosing to sit on the bed although his eyes never left hers. 

Letting out a sigh, Jude plopped herself down beside him. Her sigh was a long one. “I lost your letters, Cardan.” 

Cardan raised a brow, looking confused. “ _My_ letters? I thought you never received them. I thought my mother burnt them before they reached you.”

“Yeah, I never got those.” Jude sighed again, this time tucking her hands under her thighs. She shifted, looking down at them, and knew Cardan tracked the motion. It was a nervous habit of hers. “I’m talking about my letters to you. I wrote them when I was in exile, and they contain some, uh, of my feelings.” She gulped. “My feelings then, about you. The things I can’t say. Even now. I was going to give them to you tomorrow as an anniversary present.” She swallowed, and felt that it was suddenly thick and harder to do than before. _Be vulnerable_ , Jude thought. “I wasn’t sure you knew how I felt about you, so I decided I’d give them over, because I know I don’t always say how I feel. And it’s been a year, and you’ve been so loving and beautiful and sarcastic and verbose about your love for me. I wanted to repay that kindness to you. But I can’t find them.”

When Cardan didn’t respond, she looked up. Her husband had frozen, eyes locked on her hands in her lap. “Cardan?” 

“You wrote me letters?” His voice was soft. “You cared enough to write letters?”

“ _Cared_ probably isn’t the right word. _Felt strongly_ , maybe.” Jude tried, wincing as her words stumbled through the air. “I just didn’t want to admit what I felt, even to myself. So I wrote letters. I read somewhere that it was a way to let someone go.” Cardan lifted his head to look at her. 

“You loved me then,” he murmured, and Jude saw in his eyes that he knew he was right. “You loved me even when I exiled you.” Cardan’s tail lashed once, twice, and she saw that the monster she had once thought he was had awoken under the surface. “I thought this was one-sided, that you didn’t love me back despite all we’d been through together. I thought that was why you didn’t come back right away. I thought I’d finally scared you away.” 

She swallowed. “Of course I did,” Jude said quietly. “I’ve never been as good with words as you, but I wrote letters because I didn’t know how else to tell you I felt so much for you, not when I thought you were happy you had finally gotten rid of me, tricked me, humiliated me, that you were celebrating over how you’d finally triumphed over your stupid mortal seneschal.” Softly, she reached out and curled her hand around his. Immediately, his thumb found the ruby ring on her finger and twisted it around gently. “I just didn’t know you felt the same. I didn’t know that you longed for me the same way I pined for you. I thought I would burn the letters and let you go.”

Cardan’s eyes found hers, soft and smoldering and stoked embers all at once. “I love you, Jude. If I had the choice, I’d find you in every life-- so we’d never have to let each other go.”

Jude blinked, light tears falling down her face. “I’m so sorry, Cardan,” she murmured, and huffed a small laugh as a fresh wave of tears streaked down her face. “You deserve to know, and I can’t-- I can’t-- I love--”

“Jude, my darling, my goddess,” Cardan’s hands were all over her body, pressing into her cheeks as she cried. She felt his fingers stroke her there, and it was a new sensation, having him know everything and still clinging to him. “I know, dear Jude, I know.” Before she knew it, she was being pulled into him, gentle hands pressing her face into his shoulder. “You don’t need to say it. I know how much you love me.” 

She didn’t know how, but she found his lips, pushing hers into his as desperately as she could. Jude wove her fingers through his hair and pulled, sharp and sweet, and his answering groan was loud enough that she wrapped her arms around his neck tightly. “Please, please, please know.” She whispered, breaking the kiss. “Please, Cardan. Please hear me.”

“I do, Jude.” He said, nudging his forehead into hers, eyes closed. “I do. I love you.”

And so she kissed him, breathing him in, and he whispered it again.


End file.
